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WILSON' 
POLICIES 



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BY AN 



OF FOUR YEARS AGO 

taki:n from coxcressional record 

Angiist 8, 1?16 






By Transfer 

APR 21 '^25 



Wilson's Policies Menace to Nation 

REMARKS OF 

HON. JOSEPH W. FORDNEY 

OF MICHIGAN 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
Tuesday, August 8, 1916. 

Mr. FORDNEY. Mr. Speaker, I wish to have printed in the Record a 
letter written by Mr. Louis E. Rowley, of Lansing, Mich. Four years ago 
Mr. Rowley was an ardent Wilson supporter. He now proposes to vote for 
Charles E. Hughes, and in this statement he gives his reasons therefor. 

Mr. Rowley's letter, as printed in the Detroit Free Press of August 7, is 
as follows: 

Wilson's Policies Menace to Nation in Mighty Crises — So 
Declares Louis E. Rowley in Telling Why He Has Turned 
Against Man He Supported Ardently — Attitude Toward 
Mexico Brought Reign of Anarchy — Vacillating and Un- 
neutral Stands Toward Germany and England Caused 
Dangerous Tangle. 

(By Louis E. Rowley.) 

It was said of Lamartine, the brilliant French writer and 
political rhetorician, that his career as the virtual head of 
the short-lived provisional government in 1848 had proved 
that the government of a great country cannot be carried 
on permanently by making speeches from a balcony. 

The unpractical but well-meaning and highly gifted hero 
of the democratic reaction in France was supposed to have 
furnished the most classic example of the failure of specious 
phrases to do the work of government, but I am regretfully 
obliged to say that it has remained for the present Demo- 
cratic President of the United States, in one of the most 
critical periods of the world's history, to outdo him in this 
kind of achievement. 

I was one of those who ardently supported Woodrow 
Wilson in both the preconvention and electoral campaigns of 
1912, because I regarded him as the most philosophical, the 
most eloquent, and the most clear-visioned Democratic leader 
of his day. 

3 



I had formed my opinion of his character and public capac- 
ities from rcadiiii^ his occasional deliverances, both as a dis- 
tinguished American scholar and as a thoughtful and lumi- 
nous commentator on political affairs, and I was led to believe 
that he would be as wise and courageous in action as he had 
been in speculation. 

But I have learned to my sorrow that a man may be a 
philosopher in his maxims and yet a palterer in his practice; 
a statesman in his concepts and yet a fatuous opportunist in 
his actual handling of public affairs. 

I have also learned that even a Democratic label is not aa 
absolute guaranty of clear and undeviating Democratic con- 
duct, and that even the skin of a mellifluous Jeffersonian may 
conceal an irresponsible autocrat. 

I supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912 in the full conviction 
that he would make a great and worthy Democratic suc- 
cessor of Grover Cleveland, who combined a high idealism 
with a powerful practical judgment. 

"Saving Common Sense" of Cleveland Absent 

I am opposing Woodrow Wilson in this campaign in the 
equally firm conviction that he has neither the intellectual 
conscientiousness nor the "saving common sense" of the man 
whose administration shed such luster on the Democratic 
name. 

I supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912 because he stood for 
"open and disentangled processes of government," for "piti- 
less publicity," and for the restoration of the "authority of 
our legislative bodies," which he declared was necessary to 
the "recovery of their self-possession and self-respect," and 
in order that "the people may again depend, and depend with 
confidence, upon their legislators, and not lean as if for res- 
cue upon their Executive." 

I am opposing Woodrow Wilson in this campaign because 
as President he has done more to discourage "open and dis- 
entangled processes of government," to stifle publicity, to 
belittle legislative bodies, and to teach the people to "lean 
as if for rescue upon their Executive" than any American 
President since Andrew Jackson, whose arbltrarv conduct — ■ 
to quote from that distinguished work, Woodrow Wilson's 
History of the American People — "broke the course of all 
settled policy, forced every question to square itself with the 



President's standards, altered the elements oi parties" — 
because, in a word, by his sccrclivcncss, his academic arro- 
gance, and his studied contempt for Congress he has will- 
fully and persistently belied his own oft-repeated and fasci- 
natingly phrased pronouncements a>n these matt?ers of su- 
preme Democratic concern. 

I supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912 because I beUeved 
that he would sincerely strive to be a useful and single- 
minded President of the United States, and would glory in 
promoting the best interests of his country at whatever sac- 
rifice of his academic predilections. 

I am opposing Woodrow Wilson in this campaign because 
he prides himself on being the "President of humanity" and 
persistently acts on the theory that his duties are defined, 
not by the laws of the United States but by the general 
moral law — according to St. Woodrow. 

Pledges of Platform Flouted and Repudiated 

I supported Woodrow Wilson in 1912 because I firmly be- 
lieved that he could be counted on to carry out with a meas- 
urable degree of faithfulness the pledges contained in the 
Democratic platform of that year — pledges which he himself 
vauntingly declared "say what they mean and mean what 
they say." 

I am opposing Woodrow Wilson in this campaign because 
he has repeatedly and defiantly flouted and repudiated some 
of the most important of these pledges, thus paltering with 
both his party and the country in a double sense, breathing 
the word of promise to the ear and breaking it to the hope. 

I have briefly set forth in the foregoing some of the princi- 
pal reasons why four years ago I gave my voice and vote for 
Woodrov/ Wilson, but I have stated only a few of the rea- 
sons which have impelled me to take my stand against him 
in the present campaign. I have reserved the more impor- 
tant of them for a more extended synopsis and discussion. 

But notwithstanding these voluntary and very explicit as- 
surances, he had no sooner assumed the Presidency than he 
announced that he would take the boldest step toward the 
realization of the purely academic Idea of free trade that had 
ever been attempted by any first-class modern Government 
(for even "free-trade" England imposes a revenue duty on 



sugar) by wholly removingf the tariff on sugar which had 
been maintained since the days of Thomas Jefferson and 
which had been defended by Grover Cleveland as "the most 
logical and equitable" customs tax ever levied by the Govern- 
ment. 

Such was the "program of free trade" which Woodrow 
Wilson made the ne plus ultra feature of his initial legisla- 
tive policy, despite his vehement preelection declaration that 
'*no Democrat of thoughtfulness" ever contemplated it or 
would stand for it. However, he forced a Democratic Con- 
gress to stand for it two years, and then it repealed it be- 
cause neither the finances of the Government nor the eco- 
nomic welfare of the country would stand for it any longer, 
put in the meantime a large public revenue had been lost and 
a legitimate agricultural industry jeopardized and only saved 
from practical annihilation by the "world smash" in Europe, 
which suddenly sent sugar prices booming. 

Denouncer of Caucus, He Invokes the Closure 

It is to be remarked that neither in the Panama tolls ex- 
emption matter nor in his free-sugar coup did the President 
deign to enlighten anyone as to the real reasons which had 
induced him to insist on such a startling volte face. He was 
not frank, he was not consistent, and he was hardly intel- 
ligible. Although he had been a vigorous denouncer of the 
"secret caucus," under whose workings legislators had be- 
come "mere automata," he now resorted to the most offen- 
sive use of the old tyrannical caucus system to force his 
pledge-smashing measures through Congress. Even the 
hateful and undemocratic closure was invoked by him to 
silence the congressional dissentients to his legislative plans. 
He assumed an attitude of undisguised impatience and even 
intolerance toward those who opposed him, and demanded 
the adoption of his recommendations without debate and 
without question. He seemed to think that all the functions 
and all the policies of the Democratic Party were compre- 
hended, controlled, and included in himself, and that it was 
rank sacrilege to impugn either his wisdom or his acts. As 
for the Democrats in Congress — 

Theirs not to make reply. 

Theirs not to reason why, 

Theirs but to do — and sigh ! 



Some of them, of course, swore, but the most 'of them 
"look their medicine"' as innocuously as possible. Before 
the authority and prestige of the omnificent White House 
evang-cl of the new freedom they were powerless, not to 
say obsequious. 

There is still another and more signal instance of the 
President's apostacy to his platform obligations. There was 
one particular plank in the Baltimore platform that was so 
thoroughly American, so clear, so straight, so inspiringly 
patriotic that if it had been the only issue in the election all 
the States in the Union would have been Democratic. Let 
me quote it here in full : 

"The constitutional rights of American citizens should 
protect them on our borders and go with them throughout 
the world, and every American citizen residing or having 
property in any country is entitled to and must be given the 
full protection of the United States Government, both for 
himself and his property." 

How well this promise has been kept let the shameful and 
gruesome history of the last three years of abandonment of 
American citizens and their property and of our national 
obligations under the Monroe Doctrine in Mexico tell. 

Geographical Lines in Protecting Citizens 

1 know it will be contended that the President has at- 
tempted in his ow^n furtive, spasmodic, and irresponsible way 
to enforce this pledge as against the central powers of 
Europe; but why shouldn't it mean the same thing in iMexico 
as to American citizens and their property as it does upon 
the deck of an armed British merchantman flying the flag of 
St. George? 

Who can imagine a AVashington or a Jackson or a Cleve- 
land enacting such a role of executive impotence as Wood- 
row Wilson has enacted in respect of those American rights 
in Mexico which the above-quoted splendid plank in the 
Democratic platform was so evidently intended to vindicate 
and defend? 

I shall touch very briefly upon the other examples of eva- 
sion and violation of platform declarations which have been 
so frequently furnished b}^ the administration. The Balti- 
more convention reaflirmed the time-honored party pledge to 
"honestly and rigidly enforce" the civil-service law, but the 



Pr^sfijdent has not only violated the spirit of It by making 
moi*e purely "personal — not to say questionable — appoint- 
ments than any of his immediate predecessors, but he has 
given his executive approval to acts creating great depart- 
mental bureaus and expressly exempting them from civil- 
service regulations. This was a distinctly retrograde step. 
There was also a plank in the national platform denouncing 
"the profligate waste of the money wrung from the people 
by oppressive taxation through the lavish appropriations of 
recent Republican Congresses," and demanding "a return to 
that simplicity and economy which befits a Democratic gov- 
ernment" — but which, alas, has not been practiced by it even 
under the guidance of the most exalted exemplar of Jeffer- 
sonianism that has ever woozled the people with language 
and promises. 

From Peace Idealism to Preparedness Swift Step 

There has been the same exhibition of vacillation and back 
pedaling by the President in many matters concerning which 
he had previously expressed the most positive views. His 
penchant for dismissing an ©ugly fact with a golden- 
cadenced phrase has probably never been more vividly illus- 
trated than in that passage in his message to Congress of 
December 14, 1914, in which he discussed the question of pre- 
paredness — he called it "militarism" then — and in which he 
declared that to inaugurate such a policy "would mean 
merely that we had lost our self-possession; that we had 
been thrown ofif our balance by a war with which we have 
nothing to do, whose causes do not touch us, whose very exis- 
tence affords us opportunities of friendship and disinterested 
service which should make us ashamed of any thought of 
hostility or fearful preparation for trouble." 

Within three months from the day he made this beautiful 
and affecting idealistic utterance the President was "swing- 
ing around the circle" warning his countr3nnen that the most 
urgent duty of the hour was to inaugurate a policy of "mili- 
tarism," advocating the building of a navy "incomparably 
the strongest in the world," and raising a veritable continen- 
tal din with his "fearful preparation for trouble." 

It is apparent that the trouble is not with the President's 
work. It lies elsewhere. Plis words are good, but his word is 
not good. 

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This may sound like prett}^ harsh criticism, but note how 
even in his hanclHng of the tremendously momentous inter- 
national questions which have arisen since the war broke out 
he has justly merited it. 

During the first few months of the war President Wilson 
maintained an unexceptionable American attitude toward all 
the belligerent nations. He enjoined absolute neutrality on 
his countrymen and he practiced it himself. But when the 
desperate necessities of Germ,any and England led them to 
make reprisals against each other that were wantonly viola- 
tive of international law and of our maritime rights, the 
President lost his self-possession and turned some epistolary 
flip-flaps that finally involved the American Government in 
an appalling mess of diplomatic contradiction and unneu- 
trality. 

Administration Blunders in Mexican Situation 

Let us now turn from this record of Cervantean (or shall 
1 call it Machiavellic?) diplomacy to review the equaUy futile 
but more obstinately exemplified academic dalliance with dan- 
gerous matters that has characterized the administration's 
Mexican policy. 

It has been said that President Wilson inherited the ?slexi- 
can problem from his Republican predecessor. President Taft 
left him no problems — only a plain official duty. Victor iano 
Huerta had succeeded to the dictatorship only eight days be- 
fore Taft retired from office, and in that brief time there was 
no adequate opportunity to establish official relations with him. 
And, anyway, Taft was unwilling to do anything which might 
embarrass his successor, especiall}^ in an international deter- 
mination that was certain to seriously affect the official rela- 
tions of the two countries. He accordingly left the incoming 
administration entirely free to determine what those relations 
should be. 

But Mr. Taft himself had the clearest comprehension of 
the rightful American attitude. Speaking over a year ago on 
the Mexican question, he said: 

"We made a serious mistake at the outset, not in failing 
to recognize Huerta but in actually departing from the attitude 
of true neutrality to work against him." 

In his simple "sentence Mr. Taft exposed the crux of the 
President's blundering. It was not his withholding recogni- 

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tion from the Hucrta governnicnt, InU his deliherate attempt 
to overthrow that government, that made liim parficcps criiuiiiis 
m the Mexican debacle. 

As President of the United States ]\Ir. Wilson had only to 
deal with the actualities of the Mexican situation, but he pro- 
ceeded to act as thoni^h he had been commissioned as the 
moral governor of the Western Hemisphere. This concep- 
tion of his mission became an obsession with him and has 
maintained a solitary despotism in his mind. 

Recognition of Carranza Followed by Insult 

Although it was the first to recognize Carranza, it has been 
the first to invade the sovereignty of his government. It sent 
a large armed force into Mexico over his emphatic protests, 
and it afterwards added insult to injury by charging him in 
an official note with "encouraging and aiding" the maraud- 
ing gangs which it was trying to suppress — a charge which, 
if true, should warrant it in incontinently pitching him out of 
office and taking the Government into its own hands. 

Later, when Carranza ironically retorted by referring to 
the American punitive expedition as "interned in Chihuahua," 
and reiterated his demand for its immediate withdrawal, Secre- 
tary Lansing wrote him another "sharp note" of rebuke and 
warning in which it was plainly intimated that the United 
States would never — no, never — take its soldiers out of Mexico 
as long as Allla and his murderous bands remained unpunished 
— an intimation, however, which was no sooner ofticially given 
than the President hurried over to Xew York and reneged 
on it. 

Of course, Carranza was technically right. The American 
Army had no l)usiucss to be "interned'' in Mexico. It went 
into Mexico to get \'illa. and it hnd not got him. Indeed, it 
had virtually abandoned the attempt to get him. In these 
circumstances there was no other honorable alternative except 
to withdraw our Army to the American side. Its continued 
presence on Mexican soil only served to inflame the suscepti- 
l)ilities of the .Mexican ])eople. No nation with a spark of self 
respect would stand for the indefinite quartering of foreign 
troops on its territory. 

Thus was contributed another of 4he 'gHastly paradoxes 
which, hnvc marked the evolution of the administration's iNTexi- 

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can policy — a policy certain only fn its weakness and inde- 
terminations, and which attained the chmacteric of pharisaic 
pretenses when the President declared the other day that he- 
had constantly to remind himself that he is not the servant oi' 
those who wish to enhance the value of their Mexican hold- 
ings. 

Question of Protection of American Life and Rights 

U is a palpable reflection on adult intelligence to say that it 
is a question of the enhancement of values in Mexico. It is 
an infinitely bigger question. It is a question of defense, of 
the protection of American life and legal rights under Mexican 
and international law. The statesmanship that takes any other 
view of it is a misnomer and a fraud. It is gratifying to note 
that Secretary Lansing does not indorse the President's 
stand. In his note of June 20 rejecting the Carranza request 
for the withdrawal of the American troops he used these 
truthful and weighty words: 

*Tor three years the Mexican Republic has been torn with 
civil strife, the lives of Americans and other aliens have been 
sacrificed, vast properties developed by American capital and 
enterprise have been destroyed or rendered nonprofitable," etc. 
These are the weighty things which the Secretary of State 
recited to justify the retention of our Army in IMexico. There 
is not a word in his note about the mythical "sinister" American 
interests in Mexico — about the bugaboo of enhancing the value 
of Mexican values. He was talking. In a serious strain. lie 
was under the necessity of stating facts, of making out an 
American case that would stand the test of the searching scru- 
tiny of the chancelleries of the world. Moreover, he was lay- 
ing the ground for an appeal to American patriotism, if war 
should come, and he knew that the professional twaddle 
about the "American adventurers" In Alexico w^ould never do. 
That demagogic device served very well while President Wil- 
son was tr3dng to create the popular impression that he was 
preventing us from being made the victim of a plot to en- 
hance by war the value of the holding of "predatory" Amer- 
ican interests in Mexico. But when the country was actually 
facing the possibility of war as a result of the breakdown of 
the administration's' puerile and pedantic policy of "serving 
mankind," instead of the interests of the American Nation, 
it was necessary to tell the truth and to admit that for three 

II 



years the "lives of Americans" had been wantonly sacrificed 

in Alexico without eHciting an3'tliing more than an occasional 
mildly deprecatory "note" from the Washington Government, 
which almost invariably reserved the sharpest rebukes for 
those arch trouble makers, the "American adventurers" who 
had been presumptuous enough to act on the theory that the 
American eagle is not a hen bird. 

It was inevitable that, with the perplexities and futilities 
that were bound to inhere in the policy of watching and wait- 
ing (only to "butt in at the wrong time!) our relations with 
Mexico should rapidly progress from worse to worse — and 
the worst w^as attained when the President sent the punitive 
expedition into Mexico to catch the elusive Villa. It signalized 
the complete collapse of the vaunted policy that was to restore 
order and "the rule of the people" in the stricken RepubHc. 
But no one really believed that he would go very far in play- 
ing the part of a "strong elder brother" to Mexico — not even 
when he was threatening Carranza in his biggest bow-wow 
strain and mobilizing all the available State militia to make 
a formidable military demonstration along the Rio Grande. 
Nearly everybody was con\'inced that the man who had dis- 
patched the American Fleet to attack and capttTre the seaport 
of Vera Cruz on the pretext of obtaining a salute to our 
"insulted" flag, and then had suddenly and ignominiously re- 
called the fleet after presenting the keys of the city to that 
inveterate American hater,''*^ Carranza, without receiving or 
"Stipulating for the long overdue salute to our flag, could not 
1)e depended upon to pursue any aggressive policy to a defini- 
tive conclusion. 

Pales Before Conditions Rhetoric Can Not Alter 

Thus v/as again illustrated the fateful propensity of Mr. 
Wilson to be forever starting something which he either can 
not or will not finish. He frequently talks in a very brave and 
even highly provocative fashion, but just as he gets the whole 
country worked up to follow him, he stops and sounds the 
note of retreat. This is the inevitable consequence of his 
pedantic dependence upon "the teeming wonder of his words" 
to achieve his ends. When he goes up against conditions 
which no spell of rhetoric can conjure aw^ay he loses all his 
driving power and relapses into a state of complete Executive 
desuetude. 

12 



It is not necessary to impugn the President's intentions to 
emphasize the failure of his amazing- Mexican misadventure. 
We are bound to say that Mr. Wilson's character presents one 
of the most puzzling- paradoxes in American history; the pe- 
culiarities of a mind in which great powers are formed in com- 
pany with great weaknesses. He is at once the most self-willed 
idealist and the most vacillating executant that has ever filled 
the presidential office. Inflexible as granite when his scholastic 
crochets are concerned, he is as weak as heliotrope in apply- 
ing principles and enforcing administrative policies. A pe- 
culiarly repellant combinaton of doctrinaire and dictator when 
he has an acadamic theory to impose on Congress or an indi- 
vidual (like the "usurper" Huerta) to punish and pursue, he 
is the incarnation of indecision and feebleness when he faces 
the responsibility of effectuating concrete statesmanlike de- 
signs. 

Instincts of Practical Statesman Are Absent 

So far as his relations with Congress are concerned, the 
President is the acid impersonation of aloofness. Pie has not 
counseled with it ; he has only dictated to it. He has no capa- 
city for teamwork unless he is driving the team'. He lacks 
the practical statesman's instinct and guidance concerning men 
as well as concerning public measures. It may seem a strange 
thing to say, but there is hardly a Democratic member of either 
Plouse who fully trusts the President or is fully trusted by 
!iim. 

"Those he commands move only in command, 
Nothing in love." 

Apparently his idea of the Democratic majority in Congress 
is that it should study and conform to his own cranial con- 
volutions — that it is a mere dot above the presidential "i," 
something that follows, of course, and need not be seriously 
considered. Naturally the Democratic congressional leaders 
deeply resent this presidential attitude but they could prob- 
ably put up vv^ith it w^ith far more grace than they do if they 
had any real confidence in the statesmanlike judgment and 
consistency of Mr. Wilson. But they have learned from 
bitter experience that he does not hesitate to put them in a 
false and humiliating position — as v^as shown in the Panama 
tolls exemption case and later in the controversy over the 

13 



JMcLemore resolution — provided he can only win an ephem- 
eral triumph for himself or for one of the sumptuous Prince- 
tonian proposals. 

The Democratic leaders know how uncertain and undemo- 
cratic he is — how vague and vaporish are his convictions, and 
how purely academic is his political philosophy. They know 
how inaccessible he is to appeals made to him from honest 
motives and with naught but the most friendly feelings. But 
they know also how skillful he is in the use of his single 
but unrivalled talent of literary bamboozlement — of indulging 
in large dithyrambic affirmation and lofty moral reflections 
which the multitude applaud without analyzing. Like the 
President himself, the Democratic leaders have come to be- 
lieve that these grand ear-tickling utterances can be de- 
pended upon, like the beneficent wind in the fairy tale, to 
blow everything into the right place — if not in an economic 
or governmental sense, then at least in a partisan sense, 
which is what some of them are chiefly concerned about/' 

But it is certain that the great majority of thoughtful and 
patriotic Americans will demand something more than the 
command of an attractive literary style as the chief qualiti-i 
cation of their President. They know that something more' 
than this is necessary for effectiveness in statecraft. They 
want some assurance as to where their President is going 
to stand. They know that while Mr. Wilson has an enor- 
mous capacity for rousing great public expectations, he has 
little, if any, capacity for realizing them ; that while he as- 
sumes to exemplify the highest public rectitude, he does not 
hesitate to discard one conviction after another, as if they 
were so many worn-out gloves, if political exigencies happen 
to require their sacrifice; that w^hile he has boasted of keep- 
ing us out of war, he has persistently pursued a course that 
has made for war by either running away from duty or per- 
versely miscomprehending it; that while he has urged neu- 
trality upon everybody else, he has been a most lax prac- 
titioner of it himself; that while he has warned the people 
not to get "nervous and excited" about preparedness, because 
"the question has not changed its aspect even if the times are 
not normal," he has worked himself up into a perfect furor of 
excitement lest Congress and the country shall not back him 
up in a big armament building program; that while he has 
protested his unalterable opposition to armed intervention in 

14 



Mexico, he has done more intervenin.q- in thnt country than 
any President since Polk; that while he has talked bravely and 
finely about his 'lullaby policy" that is to "serve mankind,"., he 
has really had no policy at all, but drifts, drifts. 

Country Passing Through Tremendous Crisis 

Speaking- as a Democrat, I would not give my vote to in- 
dorse such a record as the present administration has made if 
Thomas Jefferson had indorsed it a thousand times. I say 
it sadly, but in many respects Woodrow Wilson has been the 
most undemocratic President the country has ever had — 
undemocratic alike in his temper and in his conception of the 
functions of his office. If a Republican President had done 
the arbitrary, inconsistent, and incredibly maladroit things 
which Woodrow W^ilson has done from the very outset of 
his presidential career, the Democratic leaders and press 
w'ould long ago have united in a deafening demand for his 
summary impeachment as an intolerable dictator. They are 
only prevented from doing so now^ by the fact that over his 
head flies the Democratic flag, which in the stress of a presi- 
dential contest they prefer to the flag of their country. 

But I can not take such a narrow, partisan view of my re- 
sponsibility as an American voter. We are passing through 
one of the most tremendous crises in world history. Tem- 
pest weather is still threatening. Even the signing of a peace 
concordat in Europe may increase rather than diminish our 
national difficulties by precipitating a revolutionary tumult 
that will rival the war in its w^orld-convulsing consequences. 
In any event the end of the w^ar w-ill bring momentous eco- 
nomic and international changes. If there was ever a time 
when the United States needed wase, strong, and steadfast 
statesmanly guidance, it is in these destiny-fraught days. 

Fortunately in the midst of our national anxiety and bewil- 
derment one rock of assurance rears its head. It is the 
figure of that courageous, masterful, and forthright Ameri- 
can^ statesman, Charles Evans Hughes. "He is a tried and 
proved certainty," is the tribute which w^as paid to him by 
the Democratic New York World over eight years ago. No 
one has ever accused him of rhapsodizing or trimming in the 
presence of grave public perils. No one has ever questioned 
his intellectual conscientiousness. He owes all of his na- 
tional prominence to the independence, the directness, and 

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013 982 507 fi , 

the unhasting thoroughness of his political action. I\ever n: 
all his public career a bidder for popularity, he has neverthe- 
less been taken up by the people and advanced to the highest 
official position. By consequence his career is one of the 
great examples, one of the great inspirations, of our country. 
All of which goes to prove that he has the quality of a 
representative mind — the mind of a real leader to whom the 
people instinctively turn in a time of national need. 

I shall therefore vote for Charles Evans Hughes with the 
same patriotic confidence that I voted for Grover Cleveland. 
Although a Republican, there is no suggestion of the lock 
step in his partisanship. He strides out for himself. And 
this is a mighty significant fact to keep in mind to-day when 
American political parties differ chiefly in the accident of 
personnel. If they dififer in theory, it is in the matter of 
emphasis rather than of belief. Woodrow Wilson is a Demo- 
ocrat in name, but he has the instinct of a tyrannical dog- 
matist. Hughes is nominally a Republican, but he is the 
incarnation of the Democratic characteristics of sincerity, 
equality, frankness, and square dealing. Moreover, he is 
the one American statesman who has shown that he can 
refer to principle on all occasions without losing his hold on 
practice and keep a firm grip of elevated public ideals with- 
out forgetting the art of adapting them to actual conditions. 

Just before he assumed the Presidency, in 1913, Woodrow 
Wilson said that "the rarest thing in public life is courage" 
— an impressive saying which he proceeded to exemplify 
in his ingratiatingly grandiloquent way by announcing that 
"the people of this country are going to be served by con- 
science and not by expediency." 

But a rarer thing in public life is the man who has not 
only courage and conscience but also common sense, and how 
fortunate is the country that after ?'^Iarch 4 next will be 
served by a man possessing all three. 



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